Back to school

This is the week that all three of my progeny has their first day of school during this new 2020/2021 pandemic school year.

The younger two (aged 11 and 15) have in-class sessions on a full schedule like they would have had in the past, with a few changes: masks required and students to remain in same classroom for the entire day and for the entire year, with the same class mates. A few exceptions to this (phys ed classes, for example).

The oldest one (aged 18) has all of his classes on-line, however, he will have to go in to school to do some of the lab sessions he has in some of his science courses. Some lab work simply can't be done at home.

Very much appreciated, my sister made a whole bunch of masks so that I won't have to launder them on a nightly basis; they can each wear one and bring two with them so they can switch during the day, and the next day, repeat. By then I'll need to wash, and so every second night I'll do a load of mask laundry. We'll have to see how that goes, and maybe I'll be able to make it every third night.

I will continue to work from home during this pandemic, though, I received a survey from my company's HR asking what our intentions were with respect to heading into the office as of October 1st to the end of the calendar year, with the company's recommendation still being to work from home. I responded to say that I think I would like to go in to work on Wednesdays, just to get a break from being home all of the time, and also, to support the local restaurants that I used to frequent pre-pandemic.

I heard on the radio today that there are already at least three companies that the Canadian Government has signed contracts with to produce the millions of doses of vaccine for COVID-19 that will be needed once any of them have successfully passed the Phase 3 trials. Given already there are some of these that have started the Phase 3 it could mean that we'll have a vaccine in early 2021. It will be interesting to see how society (schools and work in particular) manage the situation where at some points in time, some of the people will have been vaccinated while others haven't been.

I suppose what they could do for the schools is to do the vaccination in the school - this is the surest way to immunize everybody that attends that school. I can also envision my workplace doing the same thing; though not all workplaces would do this. Then all that's left is what to do during the commute to/from work/school where it isn't at all clear who has been vaccinated, and who hasn't.